2011 will go down in the history books as a great year for tablets mostly for Apple's iPad however, not all tablet vendors fared as well as Apple. It's not for lack of products that prevented Android tablets from taking any market share away from Apple this year. By our calculation, over 100 tablets were introduced since the iPad however, we defy even the most tech-savvy of you to name more than a few of them. What was so wrong with the competition that it failed to make any inroads in the tablet market, at least until the Amazon Kindle Fire and Barnes & Noble Nook came along?

I just bought my wife one of the much maligned cheap Android 2.3 "tablets". A Nextbook 8 Premium, Its hardware specs are relatively basic; 1 GHz ARM processor, 512 Mb RAM, 4Gb storage with micro USB, a micro SD slot and a 8 in. capacitive screen. It is really just an extended eBook reader. But it is fast and intuitive to use. In addition she can browse the web using WiFi and the Webkit based browser that comes with Android (a better experience than I expected), read her email, view videos (YouTube runs smoothly), take pictures and listen to her favourite music as well as reading ebooks. As for apps so far I have installed Overdrive for her so she can borrow ebooks free from our public library. She is keen to try some other apps as well, like one that will do web radio. She couldn't care less about games.

It might not compare to an iPad or be the perfect small Android tablet but at about a third the price of an iPad, it is a very useful and competent little device that meets her needs exactly.